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A wave of flight cancellations swept across US airports on Friday as federal aviation regulators cut journeys at dozens of large airports during the longest government shutdown on record.
By 11am eastern standard time, 836 flights within, into or out of the US had been cancelled, according to tracking website FlightAware. That is more than quadruple the number of cancellations on any of the previous three days.
The jump follows a decision by regulators to restrict capacity at 40 “high traffic” airports from November 7 in order to ease air traffic controllers’ workload, which has been exacerbated by the government shutdown that is now in its fifth week.
The cuts mark the first widespread disruption for airlines as a result of the shutdown, a situation that has the potential to cause cancellations to rise over the next week.
The Federal Aviation Administration and transportation department confirmed on Thursday night that flight reductions would occur in phases, beginning at 4 per cent on Friday and ultimately rising to 10 per cent by November 14.
“As this problem grows and as cancellations grow, there’s not a lot of slack in the system, and managing the airline, managing the industry, becomes exponentially harder as you increase the level of cancellations,” said American Airlines chief executive Robert Isom in a CNBC interview on Friday morning.
American, Delta Air Lines and United Airlines — the three biggest carriers in the US — on Thursday announced they would scrap almost 600 trips collectively on November 7 in response to the FAA directive.
The cuts will focus on regional flights over international routes, according to airlines and the FAA, in the hope that the reduction in volume can help controllers maintain the safety of US airspace.
Isom said the situation was “frustrating” and that it was necessary to reopen the government ahead of the busy holiday period that begins around Thanksgiving. There had already been an impact on bookings for the period as a result, he said.
National Economic Council head Kevin Hassett on Friday highlighted the adverse impact on the broader economy of air travel being restricted for an extended period.
“Business travel is a really big, important part of air travel and if business travel isn’t happening then those are deals that aren’t being cut and hotel rooms that aren’t being filled,” he said during a Fox Business interview on Friday morning.
“Travel and leisure is a place that’s really being heavily hit right now and if it continues to get hit, if the air travel thing goes south for another week or two, then you could say that they would have at least a near-term downturn,” Hassett added.
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